Google Updates and SERP Changes - March 2016

[JS_Harris]

Continuing from:
Google Updates and SERP Changes - Feb 2015
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4788898.htm [webmasterworld.com]



I think something major might be changing right now, my 'search analytics' data in Google's 'search console'(ie:GWT) has not updated for a full week. The last data showing on the page/keyword reports is from Feb 23rd.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:44 am (utc) on Mar 1, 2016]

[aristotle]

These answer boxes at the top of google's search results seem to be proliferating rapidly. They must be taking a lot of clicks away from the top results. Yet many of them come from pages that aren't in the top results. It's hard to understand. If they're not good enough to be among the top results, then why are they chosen for answer boxes.

[mrengine]

Increased blog spam can be an indication that your site is easier to find in Google. The spam bots scrape Google for targets and then post. Have you noticed any change in traffic or your ranks? I know some spammers like to use Bing or Yahoo for scraping because their automated queries don't get blocked as quickly. Maybe your ranks improved in Bing or Yahoo?

I don't see any changes in my Google ranks, but sales are way down.

[renatovieira]

Today things are complicated. Huge drop in my traffic. I've never seen this on a Wednesday.

[SEOcomfort]

I have seen an increase in traffic today (~15%) and my rankings are pretty stable, but my conversions have disappeared. I usually have a couple by this time in the day. Something is definitely going on.

[masterjoe]

mrengine, my website has been steadily climbing the ranks and is now part of an ongoing negative SEO attack. I complained about this a few weeks ago when it first started, and I've been disavowing every few days. It's been getting worse, ahrefs picks up about 20-30 new links a day which is a huge waste of my time and energy that could be productive.

I have also noticed that sales are way down even though my rankings have improved. Whatever Google is doing is serious business because sales were relatively good last week.

[dethfire]

I have also seen a traffic increase of about 15%

[FX4nWOO]

Currently have a site that, by the looks of things, isn't trying to out rank us, however, they have taken over our spot for #1, bumping us to #2. We've ranked #1 for years for this Keyword (It's local - business name) this happened Monday. I see thing heating up in MozCast on Monday, so I'm not overreacting, but it is concerning. So I ran a Moz On-Page Grader, for both site and the keyword. Got back a grade of A for oursite, and the other is a C.

I Just got off the phone with Google about an adwords campaign, completely unrelated to my issue on Monday. Out of curiosity I asked about organic listings and anything changing... the Google Rep was able to re-create the issue SERP - when he did, he mentioned that perhaps it was the number of reviews and positive feedback the other location had. They had 154 reviews with a 4.2 Rating, and we have 76 Reviews with a 3.2.

Has anyone else heard of something similar happening?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

[EditorialGuy]

the Google Rep was able to re-create the issue SERP - when he did, he mentioned that perhaps it was the number of reviews and positive feedback the other location had. They had 154 reviews with a 4.2 Rating, and we have 76 Reviews with a 3.2.

He was speculating, just like anybody else who doesn't have access to the inner workings of Google's search algorithm.

[FX4nWOO]

I agree. But, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some how the rankings play a role.

SERPs the same as yesterday on desktop & mobile. - I'll continue to monitor and watch for changes.

[System]

The following message was cut out to new thread by robert_charlton. New thread at: google/4798794.htm [webmasterworld.com]
12:24 am on Apr 2, 2016 (PDT -8)